McCann-Erickson has been picked to run a campaign to rejuvenate
static bread sales.
A TV test commercial, starring Paul Whitehouse, the star of BBC 2’s the
Fast Show who recently featured in a campaign to boost milk consumption,
will go on air in the Yorkshire and Tyne Tees areas early next year
before a possible national roll-out.
A budget of more than pounds 500,000 has been earmarked for the test,
which will include a supporting radio campaign.
The initiative, the first of its kind for 15 years, comes from Bread for
Life, a subsidiary of the Flour Advisory Bureau, a promotional body
funded by the UK flour milling industry.
The campaign aims to capitalise on Government recommendations that
people should get more of their dietary energy requirements from complex
carbohydrate-rich foods and proportionally less from fat.
It takes place against a dramatic reduction of bread sales since the
war, partly as a result of changing consumer tastes, but also because of
rival snack products.
’We’ve been trying to get a campaign off the ground for some time,’ Alex
Bellinger, a Flour Advisory Bureau executive, said. ’We liked what we
saw from McCanns.’
The campaign will encourage people to eat an extra slice of bread a
day.
John Murray, the Bread for Life director, said: ’The TV campaign is
intended to convey the value of bread as a healthy energy food.’
Filming of the commercial, in which Whitehouse will play one of his
comic characters, will begin shortly. Ben Langdon, the McCanns managing
director, said: ’The campaign is aimed at raising the food value of
bread using a distinctive character.’
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